The Table Mesa tangle -- aggravatingly familiar to those traveling from Boulder to Denver -- is about to become a thing of the past.

Crossing over the highway, waiting for the signalized left-turn out of Table Mesa park-n-Ride and then doubling back to the looping U.S. 36 on-ramp has been replaced with a simple slip ramp on eastbound U.S. 36 and a pedestrian bridge over the highway. The Regional Transportation District claims the new alignment, which will see its first bus Sunday morning, will shave two to three minutes off the commute for Denver-bound commuters.

For Doug Johnson, a University of Colorado law student who lives in Westminster, those couple of minutes could make the difference between making his desired transfer on to the Route 51 bus on Sheridan Boulevard during evening rush hour or waiting around a half an hour for the next one.

"I'm always two minutes behind it," Johnson said Friday, as he waited for a midday bus at the Table Mesa park-n-Ride. "Take away the loops and it should be more direct. I think it's good."

That's what RTD Director Chuck Sisk thinks as well. He will appear at Table Mesa park-n-Ride on Monday morning to help hand out orange juice and granola bars to commuters. A formal ribbon-cutting for the new bridge and slip ramp will be held at 10 a.m. on Friday.

"Time is important," Sisk said. "The more convenience we can provide our citizens, the better."

Add the time savings provided by other slip ramps installed up and down the U.S. 36 corridor over the last 10 years -- including at Louisville/Superior, Broomfield and Westminster park-n-Rides -- and Sisk said the commute between Denver and Boulder has become a much more efficient undertaking.

"Every incremental saving of time benefits our customers," he said. "I think it's going to assist us in making the U.S. 36 corridor more available."

The revamp of Table Mesa Park-n-Ride began in the fall of 2011 but picked up speed last year when construction on the $7 million FasTracks-funded project really took off. Last fall, the enclosed pedestrian overpass was moved into place and the slip-ramp was cut into the side of the eastbound on-ramp off of Table Mesa Drive. The pedestrian bridge unofficially opened to the public for the first time Friday evening.

RTD says the south side of the Table Mesa stop has been given a more elegant name than slip ramp -- it's called the bus plaza. It boasts half a dozen bus shelters, 10 bike racks with more coming, trash and recycling barrels, newspaper racks and benches.

Jeff Miessel, project engineer with RTD's FasTracks team, said working at the Table Mesa station wasn't without its challenges, given that the site impinges on land or facilities owned or controlled by CU, Boulder County, the city of Boulder and the Colorado Department of Transportation. He said everyone's interests had to be taken into account as the work proceeded.

And there wasn't a whole lot of wiggle room, given the area's crowded and busy geography, Miessel said.

"It was challenging," he said. "It's a tight site."

Stan Szabelak, civil engineering project manager for RTD, said a little more money was spent on fortifying the pedestrian bridge to avoid having to build a middle support for it. That was done so that when work on CDOT's U.S. 36 Managed Lanes project reaches the Boulder area in a couple of years, the bridge's structure won't interfere with the design and installation of the inside toll, bus rapid transit and high-occupancy vehicle lanes planned for the highway.

"By clear-spanning it, it benefits the future planning of the highway," Szabelak said.

He said the only complaint that might come out of the project could be from commuters who don't want to spend the time or energy crossing the highway to catch eastbound buses.

RTD is giving consideration to those luggage-laden passengers headed to the airport -- on the AB SkyRide -- by not requiring them to cross over the highway on the bridge. The SkyRide bus will continue to pick up and drop off passengers where it always has, at the park-n-Ride parking facility on the north side of U.S. 36.

Szabelak said the gains of the project, especially the reduction of emissions from moving and idling buses caught up in inefficient routing, should outweigh the concerns.

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